Various musicians have started out in the underground and left it behind for commercial mainstream success. Few have deliberately taken the opposite route back into the counterculture - and rarely as repeatedly as our guest Stephen Duffy.

 

Stephen formed, and left, Duran Duran, had chart success in both the 80s and the 90s as a solo artist and then again in the 00s as songwriter / producer for Robbie Williams - with whom he toured the enormodromes of the world. But each time, he turned around and returned to the folk underground roots of his early inspirations with his band The Lilac Time.

 

We take a gentle personal trip through the counterculture soundtracked by some of those inspirations. And we hear how the folk underground  - and The Lilac Time - have quietly kept going whilst musical genres have come and gone. And we wonder if the counterculture is still alive and twitching, or if it was killed in the 80s .. by Gary Numan..

 

For more on Stephen and The Lilac Time including their recent and upcoming releases

 

www.stephenduffy.com

 

For more on the Bureau of Lost Culture

www.bureauoflostculture.com